In May 2014, Front Line Defenders spoke with 3 prominent participants of
the 1989 protests and asked them about their reflections on these
protests 25 years later. Read the latest blog from Mary Lawlor commemorating the anniversary and its relevance to HRDs today.

Shen Tong

Shen Tong is a Chinese dissident who was one of the student leaders in
the democracy movement at Tiananmen Square in 1989. One of the 'People
of the Year' by Newsweek in 1989, Shen Tong became a media and software
entrepreneur in the late 1990s. He started the website Free Liu XIaobo
to campaign for the imprisoned human rights defender.

Chaohua Wang

Chaohua Wang is a freelance essayist and researcher, with a Ph.D. in
modern Chinese literature from the University of California, Los
Angeles. In 1989 she was an M.A. student in modern Chinese literature
at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She was a member of the
standing committee of the Beijing Autonomous Association of College
Students in the spring of 1989 during the demonstrations in Tiananmen
Square and was put on the Chinese government's "21 Most Wanted Beijing
Student Leaders" list. She is the author of One China, Many Paths
(2005).

Fangzheng

Fang Zheng is a former student protester who was seriously injured
during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. During the evacuation of
the Square in the early morning of June 4, Fang was run over by a
People's Liberation Army tank, which led to the amputation of both his
legs. He is currently the president of Chinese Democracy Education
Foundation.